“A magical world, presented in the most magical way... once you find yourself there, you will never want to leave it, much less forget it,” magician and magician Philip K. Dick did not skimp on praise for his young friend and protégé James Blaylock . For the first time in Russian - the second novel of a fantasy trilogy in which both dwarves and elves act, but a trilogy as different from The Lord of the Rings as possible; a trilogy populated by oddballs and eccentrics who seem to have stepped out of the pages of Dickens or Stevenson. Finding himself bored with his idle life, master cheese maker Jonathan Bing sets out in search of new adventures. A map found in the empty castle of the evil gnome Shelznak indicating the place where the treasures are hidden leads our heroes to the magical land of Belamnia, where it turns out that Shelznak has not yet said his last word...